


a midnight waltz

by loyaulte_me_lie



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Alex is the little shit we know and love, Alternate Universe - Actors, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 10:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21242768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: Most people would be thrilled to be cast in a queer indie rom-com opposite the famous, gorgeous Henry Fox. Alex Claremont-Diaz isn't most people.





	a midnight waltz

**Author's Note:**

  * For [14hpgirl19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/14hpgirl19/gifts).

> Hi 14hpgirl19, sorry - this is currently unbeta-ed and written on about three hours of sleep because your match had to drop out at the last minute, but will be properly beta-ed and continued at some point when my life isn't all over the place. But I hope you like it! And I promise I will finish the story as soon as I have time :D
> 
> No TW as far as I know. Title from Gang of Youths "Fear & Trembling."

“Ok, so,” June says, leaning over the bar and turning her glass of red wine between her fingers. Her long, brown hair catches the firelight, glimmers with it.

“What awful news are you about to impart?” Alex asks.

“80% probability you’re gonna hit the roof,” Nora chimes in from her perch on the counter where she’s half heartedly whisking the eggs for their huevos rancheros. “Actually, give me the knife. I don’t want you holding anything sharp for this news.”

“Shut the hell up I am _perfectly _responsible…” Alex says, pulling another tomato towards him to chop and add to the salsa. It’s a warm and cozy kind of evening – the wind is moaning like a bad sex scene outside the window, but in here it’s all warm tiled floors and quiet reggaeton on the radio and the chilli bubbling on the stove. He’s just wrapped on a big project, is enjoying the lull. Action movies are fun, but by _god _are they physically intense especially when he’s a fucking idiot and tries method acting for the first time when playing a _spy. _He thinks June and Nora were more ready to murder him than usual by the end of it.

“Gimme,” Nora leans over and plucks it out of his hands. “You’ll thank me when you still have all ten fingers.”

“Are you saying that the fingerless are somehow lesser, _god _Nora don’t be so ableist.”

“Jerk. June, please shut your brother up.”

“I thought that was your job? At least that’s what Hello lead me to believe this morning.”

“Juneeeee,” Nora kicks her feet like a small child. “Come on. You’ve already made me wait four hours for his reaction.”

“Okay, _now _I’m scared,” Alex says, poking at the pot on the stove and breathing in the smell of smoky beef and warm spice.

“Good news or bad news first?”

“Is it bad? It’s only bad cause Alex has a chip on his shoulder the size of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic…”

“Weirdly specific metaphor, Nora,” Alex folds his arms, turns to face the two of them.

“Ok, well I’m telling you the good news first,” June says, “sorry missed your chance. Your _good _news is that the script for Un Vals a Medianoche has been finalised! So they’re gonna start shooting in two weeks.”

“Zahra hasn’t said anything about that.”

“Yeah, I know, I asked if I could tell you. It’s just exciting, you know?”

“Of course, your first feature film,” Alex says, grinning at his sister. Honestly, she’s worked so hard on the damn thing over the last few years, hustled like mad to get the funding for it – and what could be better? June may sometimes like to impersonate a helicopter and nag him about his shitty life choices and get up his ass, but this, _this. _It’s quite amazing that he’s going to be leading the cast for her first big feature movie. “What’s this bad news, then?”

“They’ve cast your love interest,” June eyeballs him, as though he is actually a bomb that’s about to go off.

“Why are you so fucking nervous to tell me? Who is it? Have they cast Satan? Donald Trump Junior? Oh my god, please say it’s Raf, I would love to be pretend to be in love with Raf Luna, it would be fucking epic…”

“Henry Fox,” June says, and Alex feels all of his breath slide out of his lungs, like a cliff collapse, like a tidal surge. Christ. Fucking hell. Like he hadn’t even thought…he thought Henry fucking Fox was somewhere in Australia at this very moment filming some heterosexist colonial-era drama about like a lighthouse and a stolen kid. At least, that’s what hate-stalking Instagram over his morning coffee had informed him. How could the universe have betrayed him like this?

“Jesus fucking fuck,” is all he manages to say.

“He’s gone bright red,” Nora observes dispassionately. “Aren’t you glad I confiscated his knife?”

*

Alex Claremont-Diaz first sees Henry Fox Mountchristen Windsor aged fifteen in a play, in London, on a trip with his family and Nora. He’s absolutely fucked if he remembers what the play was about, but here’s what he does remember:

  1. a) Henry Fox Mountchristen Windsor is possibly the most talented eighteen-year old on the planet, the centre of his own damn magnetic force field. The play ends with him alone, in the spotlight, in the centre of the stage, and Alex cannot look away.
  2. b) at the stage door, afterwards, Alex had beamed and introduced himself and was about to say something awesome and totally not like what _everyone _says to actors at stage doors…and Henry met his eyes and then said “can you get rid of him?” to the security guard next to him.
  3. c) Alex had been hustled away.
  4. d) ever since, he’s vowed to be better than that asshole if it takes _everything _he’s got.

*

“Well, you know,” June says, later, over dinner. “At least you have chemistry?”

“Of the _loathing _each other kind. Why didn’t you veto him?”

“I didn’t even know they were considering him, babe,” June says, “but apparently he really impressed the casting director. And you know, physically, he does fit the model for Prince Jack.”

“I’m going to have to _kiss _him,” Alex moans. “And pretend to be in love with him. Is there a sex scene? Oh Christ, please say we have the budget for body doubles.”

“Take it up with Zahra she might be able to fix something,” June says, turning her mug between her fingers the way she does when she’s about to offer to do something really selfless. “I am sorry, for what it’s worth, and you know if you don’t want to do it anymore…”

“Like _hell,_” Alex interrupts, reaching out to grab her wrist. “Bug. You spent years on this thing. You basically wrote Diego for me. This is such a fucking big deal don’t you _dare _think I’d walk out on you.”

June gives him a relieved smile. “Okay. If you’re sure. And you know…you could do worse. He is pretty.”

“A pretty fucking asshole,” Alex grumbles. “Who’s so fucking perfect he might as well be automaton.”

Nora and June exchange significant looks in the weird way they sometimes do. It’s probably a function of their dating, despite the fact they deny it to every single person except Alex. He wonders at that, at the keeping it quiet and not holding hands in public and posting stupid pictures to social media. Nora always says it doesn’t feel like the right time, and anyway she enjoys starting rumours in the tabloids with him too much. June doesn’t say much at all, and when it comes to his sister Alex knows when _not _to push.

“What?” Alex demands.

“If you won’t kiss him, I volunteer,” Nora says, blithely. Alex chucks a piece of bread at her head.

*

[earlier this year]

[ **www.hellomagazine.com/oscars/afterparty-chocolate-fail-drama** ](http://www.hellomagazine.com/oscars/afterparty-chocolate-fail-drama)

**FAIL! Hearthrob Henry and up & coming Alex end up in a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN after brawl at Oscars afterparty!**

Who knows what the fight was about but eyewitnesses reported…

*

“So, I don’t care what happened last time you saw him,” Zahra says, glaring at him through her sunglasses. For a woman whose eyes Alex can’t even see, she does a damn good laser impression. “You are being civil and professional. I don’t care how much of a dick he is. He could be Vladimir Putin himself and I’d expect you to play nice. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Alex says, clutching his coffee. It is far too fucking early in the morning, especially since he didn’t really see sleep until gone 3am. Obsessing over scripts is a great way to start the night before a shoot. “It’s June’s thing, Z. I’m not gonna mess this up for her.”

“Good,” Zahra goes back to her papers. “Right. Bugger off and let me get on with your paperwork.”

“I feel like I’m being dropped off at kindergarten.”

Zahra doesn’t dignify that with a response, so Alex leaves her be, shoves his way into the room and nearly falls over none other than Henry Fox himself.

“I didn’t realise the English came with obstructiveness built-in,” Alex says, righting himself and waving away Henry’s attempt to steady him. “You always seem to be at the exact wrong place.”

“And you always seem to lose your balance,” Henry folds his arms. “I would say it’s nice to see you but…”

Alex forces his face into its biggest, fakest smile. “But I think neither of us want to bother with the lie, do we?”

“Yes,” Henry agrees, “polite fiction is entirely wasted on you.”

“And he’s here!” the director says, hustling over. “Hello, Alex, good to see you again. I see you two have met.”

“Sadly,” Alex mutters under his breath, and Henry digs a discreet elbow into his side.

“Yes, we have,” Henry tells her with a wide smile, like she doesn’t know that he and Henry have public history. She’s a friend of his mother’s, and Ellen doesn’t gossip but it feels like all of Hollywood know about his and Henry’s argument, their tooth and claw animosity. Knowing his mother, he thinks, he wouldn’t have put it past her to engineer something like this as a stab at reconciliation, but then again if it had been her, she would have been more upfront about it.

“You look wonderful Zella, I love the hat,” Alex says, diverting the conversation. “Maybe I’ll have to nick it.”

“Talk to costume and maybe Diego can be a hat kind of person,” Zella replies. “Come on. I’m sure your runners have told you but we’re just going to be doing a script run through today, and then it’s the usual costume fittings etc. I’ve got a schedule printed off in my office of the location so far, but we should be able to shoot most of it in three or four weeks. That’ll be nice after your last, right, Alex?”

Henry is giving him a sideways look.

“Spy movie,” Alex says, grudgingly, accepting the judgement. Just because it isn’t something indie, something Shakespeare, something stage – doesn’t mean it doesn’t have worth.

“Cool.” Henry’s voice is implying the exact opposite. For fuck’s sake. Alex thinks he needs a gold star system for biting his tongue. Not that it would be worth it, not in the slightest. God, he just wants to let rip.

The script-read-through is 90% painful. The other actors are fine, nice, decent humans as far as Alex can tell, the script itself is amazing because June’s a genius – there’s no way it _could _be any other way. But it’s just Henry. Alex has already memorized most of his lines so that means he has nothing else to do but sit and stare at Henry’s perfect, geometric, Fibonacci-sequence face as he goes through the lines of a enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story. Bleurgh. It doesn’t help that Prince Jack’s lines _sound _so right in Henry’s mouth.

“Okay, right,” Zella calls a lunch break at about 2pm, sends everyone out but Alex and Henry. They stand in front of her director’s chair like a pair of naughty schoolboys. Alex fidgets with the cuff of his jumper. “You two. It’s there – your chemistry, your tension – I like it, but it’s definitely more for the first section of the movie when they’re constantly fighting and the war’s looming and all of that, you know? I need to know that you can do the soft and loving bits as well, and currently I’m not getting that.”

“Okay,” Henry says for them both, because Alex doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth right now.

“Okay,” Zella says, “so go out for lunch. Get to know each other a bit better, get comfortable. Practise holding hands or being a couple or whatever shit works for you – I know you’re getting into method acting a bit, right, Alex?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, grudging.

“Well, method the shit out of this. Because this is going to be amazing – Oscar-level amazing – but you two and your relationship has got to carry it, okay? Convince me.”

“Okay,” Henry says again. “Right. Well. We’ll go grab lunch and see you later, okay?”

As soon as they get out of the doors of the studio Alex pulls his jacket closer and glowers at Henry. “My version of method acting does not involve fake-dating.”

“I don’t believe it was my suggestion,” Henry returns. “So you could stop acting like it was, maybe?”

“Well if you hadn’t auditioned, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Henry’s eyebrows crease together, and he looks down at Alex. Why has he got so much height, it’s not fucking fair. “You auditioned too.”

“Yeah, well, my sister wrote the damn thing,” Alex says. “Of course I was going to audition. She based Diego off _me._”

“Well,” Henry says, “now I know why he’s such an asshole to begin with.”

“Rude.”

“If you can’t take it…”

Alex gives him a withering look. “Don’t even.”

“Well I’m going to get lunch,” Henry says, straightening. His scarf is bright blue and does inappropriate things to his eyes. “Are you coming?”

“I don’t think you want me to.”

“Oh so you’re a mind-reader now?”

“It’s one of my many skills,” Alex shoves his hands in his pockets.

“We had better stick together, show willing for Zella,” Henry points out and starts walking in the direction of the city centre.

Alex pauses for a moment then jogs after him. “Just so you know,” he says, “if you go to Starbucks for lunch it’s officially over. I’m making them recast Prince Jack.”

“Wow, so terrifying,” Henry doesn’t look at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll go somewhere suitably indie. God forbid your image falters.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Alex says, but there’s an unwilling smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. This back-and-forth, this swords-drawn testing the waters, this is comfortable. This is more even, not him just running his mouth off at Henry and Henry taking it, like he took it at the Oscars year on year, at the afterparty, after the chocolate fountain incident of 2020. Perhaps Henry Fox _is _a real person after all. Who the hell knew?

**Author's Note:**

> I am going to write more at some point but for the moment this is standalone as I am currently working on a different set of things/have no time. But anyway.  
Come scream at me on Tumblr: @if-fortunate


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